Wheel-Lock from a Hunting Gun (1600s): Art, History and Details

Wheel-Lock from a Hunting Gun (1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Engraving is one of the oldest methods for decorating metal objects and often appears on high-quality firearms, such as this wheel lock engraved with images of the hunt. Engraving tools used by goldsmiths included steel burins and punches, whose exact specifications varied across Europe and determined, to some extent, regional variations to early engravings on paper. The name of the locksmith (a specialist in springs and triggers), Georg Bernardton Hauser, is engraved on the wheel.

Object facts

• Title: Wheel-Lock from a Hunting Gun
• Date: 1600s
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel, engraved
• Dimensions: Overall: 22.7 x 16.5 x 5.8 cm (8 15/16 x 6 1/2 x 2 5/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.39

A detail from the museum

Engraving, one of the oldest techniques for decorating metal objects, was frequently used to embellish the metal parts of high quality firearms.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. Vol. 4, 17th to 19th century and a few pieces of iron work. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], [1900-1915].
• Gilchrist, Helen Ives. A Catalogue of the Collection of Arms & Armor Presented to the Cleveland Museum of Art by Mr. and Mrs. John Long Severance; 1916-1923. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1924.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. Arms and Armor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Museum, 1998.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.